Noise
by Bunnyapocalypse96
Summary: Clara looks for the source of the ruckus keeping her from her sleep. Is the Doctor behind it? A Clara Oswald theory.


I look around the darkened room.

It hadn't just been my imagination, I'm sure of it.

Despite the TARDIS's slightly more than obvious dislike of me, she had given me quite a comfortable room to stay in.

I take in my surroundings now once again. The room is somewhere between a copy of my old childhood bedroom and a plush hotel room. The adjoining bathroom is decked out with only the most luxurious of equipment.

I find myself idly wondering if the Doctor treats all his guests in this way or if, just maybe, I might be—

I cut this thought off immediately. There are more important matters to be worrying about than a silly, little crush.

I have to find out what's making all that noise. Surely, I would not be able to get a wink of sleep until this nuisance is properly handled.

The sound truly is annoying; just quiet and distant enough for me not to be able to pinpoint its origin, but constant enough to be a pressing source of irritation.

I decide to take a walk around the Doctor's massive ship to determine where the sound is coming from. Seeing how the Doctor is probably out there working on something right now, I figure that he is the one behind the noise.

Find the Doctor, stop the noise.

I swing my feet off the bed. The floor underneath is cold. I push myself off the mattress with a grunt and I head for the door, thinking that I might try the library first.

As I reach the long hallway outside my bedroom, I feel a familiar apprehension bubble to the surface of my stomach. I'm always slightly hesitant to navigate the halls of the TARDIS alone. It gives her far too much of an opportunity to take the mickey out on me.

I try to remember the Doctor's confusing instructions as to how one gets to the huge TARDIS library, but I still feel uncertain about my destination when I reach the large doors that seem to lead to the place I am looking for.

I breathe a sigh of relief when I open the doors to find that, indeed, the library lies on the other side.

I promptly decide to utilise my insomnia by exploring a little. It's not often that I get to come to the library completely alone, after all.

The day that a crack had opened in the TARDIS and a Doctor from a different point in time had given my Doctor a quote "big, friendly button", had left me dazed and confused. This point of confusion had heightened when the Doctor had asked me if I felt safe with him later on.

In point of fact, the Doctor had felt the need to chaperone me in my excursions around the TARDIS ever since that day. Every time I would reach out to touch something on the odd shelf, there would be a sharp intake of breath from behind me. I felt like a five year old in a china store around that man.

Without the thousand-year-old Time Lord breathing down my neck, I feel strangely liberated as I walk past shelf after shelf of books, trailing my hand over each delicate spine as I pass.

I try to read the faded inscriptions on the books, but the letters are difficult to discern. The Doctor had told me a while ago that the TARDIS had the ability to translate any language in existence, human or otherwise, in one's head. For some reason, however, the TARDIS didn't seem to do this for me when I would try to read any of the books in this section of the library.

I had asked the Doctor about this once, and he had been deliberately coy about it. "Honestly, they're just a bunch of dusty encyclopaedias on Gallifreyan history," he had told me a little too innocently, "Nothing you'd be interested in. Now Anthrax literature on the other hand—" after which he had proceeded to change the subject with a very lengthy lecture on how the chicken and the egg had actually evolved at the same time.

I sigh longingly as I spot the largest of the encyclopaedias, one I estimate to be thousands of years old, conspicuously mounted on a pedestal at the very centre of the section. I'll probably never find out what secrets that book holds.

"Just one little peek?" I throw the request out in the air. My voice sounds very small and young in the large hall of ancient history.

I know that the TARDIS won't oblige and I decide to move on. The noise, ever present around me, seems to be increasing in both volume and pitch. The sound is sending my annoyance over the edge of almost becoming a physical headache.

I gnash my teeth together and head back into the hallway.

I reflect that I would most likely find the Doctor in the console room if not in the library. I find him in there every morning when I wake up. At times like those, when I see him working like a madman and muttering to himself in a strange language, I fully realise that the Doctor isn't human at all. It also serves as a nice reminder of this fact at other times when the Time Lord seems only too human.

I reach a door and I wonder if I would be lucky enough to find the right room on the first try again.

No such luck.

I open the door and find myself face to face with an oncoming steam-engine train. I shut the door hurriedly, still hearing the echoes of the whistle of the train blowing as I turn away.

"Oh, come on," I call into the air hopelessly, "I just want to get back to bed!"

I hear a soft, grating noise above me. Is it just my imagination, or is the TARDIS actually _laughing _at me?

The noise feels like claws scratching at my psyche, chipping away large chunks of my patience. Whether it's the sleep deprivation or the slowly increasing volume of the sound, I find myself unable to focus on anything except the nuisance.

I'm going to _kill_ that man for making such a racket in the middle of the night, I think to myself.

My feet are getting cold. I realise that I hadn't put on any shoes before heading out to wander the halls. As per usual with me, I had underestimated the situation.

My mother had always teased me relentlessly for doing this. She used to say that, while some people made mountains out of molehills, I liked to climb the highest mountains and insisted on calling them molehills.

I smile to myself a little sadly. I do miss her.

I consider nipping back to my room and fetching my slippers, but just then a shadow crosses my peripheral vision. For a moment I feel my body tense up, but as I turn and recognise a dark shock of floppy hair, I relax.

"Clara!" The Doctor calls out, the infectious delight of a five year old in his voice, "What are you still doing up?"

I open my mouth to answer his question, my anger at him forgotten for the moment, but he doesn't even give me room for a chirp. "Oh, it doesn't even matter!" he says, waving his hands about excitedly and causing me to duck as he almost hits me squarely in the face, "Oh, sorry. Sometimes I forget how long my arms are in this body. Brilliant for tennis, long arms. Used these babies against Nadal at the Wimbledon Champs once. He won, though I still think it was by default—"

As I listen to the Doctor chatter on about his mad adventures, I feel a pounding in my ears. It feels as if the noise is almost deafening. I wonder what the Doctor could possibly be busy with in the console room that could be making such a ruckus. The noise is quite literally giving me a headache now.

"Clara?" I hear the Doctor ask, "Are you alright?"

The concern with which the Doctor looks at me is heartwarming. I smile reassuringly at him and I try to focus my attention on the conversation rather than the irritation. "Yes," I tell him, "I was actually just coming down to see what you were getting up to that was making so much noise. Can't really sleep with you banging away the whole night through, you know."

The Doctor frowns at me uncertainly, cocking his head to the side and listening with his ear in the air. I try not to smile at the fact that he looks just like a puppy who is trying really hard to concentrate on something.

"No, I don't hear any noise," he says finally, "I've been in the library the entire time. Just catching up on some reading. Have I ever told you about Anthrax literature and how they have this brilliant theory that both the chicken _and _the egg—"

"Yes," I cut him off with a smile.

Just as the Doctor had mentioned it, the sound had abruptly stopped. I suddenly realise that the noise must have been the TARDIS trying to keep me awake all the time. What cheek!

"Haha, very funny," I mutter grumpily at the machine.

The exhaustion crashes down on me as I realise that I can now finally get to bed. I start shuffling in the direction of my room, calling a quick "Night!" to the Doctor over my shoulder.

…

I open my eyes once again.

I hadn't even been asleep for ten minutes, but the noise has returned in full swing.

In fact, it's even worse than it had been before.

I clutch my head in my hands as the noise seems to repeatedly pound at points of pressure in my brain. I gasp in pain, stumbling blindly out of bed and into the bathroom.

The floor beneath my bare feet is heated.

The Doctor can't possibly be behind the noise. I know for a fact that he is sitting quietly in the library, reading up on boring Anthrax philosophy.

The TARDIS isn't causing this, either. She doesn't like me all that much, it's true, but she would never cause me pain like this. The TARDIS may have some cheek, but she isn't this cruel.

The horrible realisation dawns on me as I look up from my hands and into my own face in the bathroom mirror. A face that is now twisted with fear and pain.

There is no noise. Not out there, at least. The noise is coming from inside. From my own head. Impossibly loud. Extremely painful. Inescapable.

The noise is _me_.

I hear it again. Four beats.

Bam, bam, bam, bam.

I look at my face again and it all comes rushing back.

_Bam, bam, bam, bam._

I am not Clara Oswin Oswald. I never was. I have many faces and many lives, but only one true name. One true identity that has stood the test of time.

BAM, BAM, BAM, BAM.

I am the Master.

Bam.

My head hits the floor and everything goes dark. The last thing I know is that I won't remember any of this when I wake up.


End file.
